How I Read Aloud, 10

[Right away I am not a "reader," and right away the audience is not hearing "words" bur rather is being enticed to share in a secret.]

       As I read through the whole poem, I know I have not had the exact experience the poet Jacob Glatstein is evoking, but I have had some experiences keyed off by the poem.

       I have prayed, but I have also been put off by prayer; yet a sunset is so familiar I am teased to find out what comes next, and by that third line about “a juicy bit of praying,” I find it’s so disarming in its informality, almost subversive of conventional ideas of prayer, that along with the easy, pleasant sense memory of “strolling on grass,” it arouses my curiosity and makes it easier for me to think I could do the same with my listeners.